2 Essay Winners Land Summer Jobs In State`s Capitol

April 7, 1989|By MICHELLE MARTIN, Staff Writer

Two Palm Beach County students will get a taste of state government this summer thanks to an essay contest sponsored by Lantana and Boynton Beach schools and chambers of commerce and state Rep. Frank Messersmith.

Audrey Spudeck, 15, a sophomore at Lake Worth High School, will spend a week as a messenger, carrying messages to representatives` offices and committee rooms in the Capitol complex. Tammi Stewart, 13, an eighth-grader at Lantana Community Middle School, will be a page for a week, carrying messages and running errands on the House floor.

The contest was open to local students between the ages of 12 and 18. Contestants wrote essays titled ``How State Government Affects Me.`` Entries were judged by the Boynton Beach and Lantana chambers of commerce.

Messersmith`s office has sponsored the contest for the past five years. Each state representative is allowed to select two students every year to spend a week each as a page or messenger, but the state does not have any rules on how the students should be selected. Messersmith, R-Lake Worth, said he sponsors the contest to open the opportunity to all the students in his district.

The state provides $84 for pages and $124 for messengers, but that does not even cover the students` cost of transportation and lodging.

The Boynton Beach and Lantana chambers of commerce help out by donating money to pay the students` expenses while they are in Tallahassee.

``This helps open the contest up to everybody, not just the kids who can afford it,`` Messersmith said.

Their teachers said this year`s contest winners both deserve the honor.

Stewart, who won the page contest, is an honor student at Lantana Community Middle School. Some of her activities are singing in the Palm Beach International Children`s Chorus, Girl Scouts, and serving as president of her school`s computer club. Stewart will start at the Capitol on May 8.

``If I had a daughter, I`d want her to be just like Tammi,`` said Doris Welsh, the school`s assistant principal. ``When you assign her a task, you know it`s going to get done.``

Spudeck, winner of the messenger contest, has been active in Lake Worth High School`s student council for the past two years, as well as being a member of Amnesty International, Greenpeace and several school groups. After she graduates, Spudeck said she wants to study law or psychology at Cornell University and then move to Washington, D.C.